Read the Signs
by haretikers
Summary: The more Sothe pushes him away the more Tormod wants to be his "friend". But when Sothe discovers that he might actually like Tormod in a way that goes further than simple frienship, will he finaly let the fire sage in or will he cast him aside forever?
1. First impressions are everything?

**Disclaimer: **I wish I could say, "star light, star bright, grant me ownership of everything Fire Emblem" but I can't. I live in a city and there are just too many lights at night. It makes it impossible for me to find a star; hence, Fire Emblem doesn't belong to me.

**A/N: **The lack of good Sothe/Tormod fanfiction makes me cry at night. Not really, but let's go with that emotion. So here is my attempt to make the world a better place. The shonen-ai and the yaoi will start in the next chapters.

-x-x-x-x-x-(Because one cannot know joy with first knowing suffering)-x-x-x-x-x-

**Chapter One "They say that first impressions are everything"**

At midst of the entire struggle and the clashes of swords, Ike smashed a locked door open with his heavy armor-slayer, "Sothe, get the valuables and leave, I'll stay out and stand guard." he ordered, letting the green haired thief sneak into the room.

Ike watched Sothe enter, but then saw his little sister running off to heal Rolf in the heat of battle. "Dammit," he grunted as he ran to her aid.

"Now where's the treasure?" the green clad thief wandered once he made sure the room was free of incoming danger. The fact that he had just walked into a room where some newlyweds were trying to consummate their love was of no consequence to him.

In a crystal light-like pedestal he found the targeted treasure, and in pure Sothy style he effortlessly unlocked the treasure box. But before he could peek at its contents he saw something moving in the expensive glass… it was the reflection of an incoming attack.

The green thief dashed to the left as an axe barely braised his chest. This aggression was soon followed by a full frontal tackle to Sothe's gut. The impact was so fierce; the thief was shoved to the ground.

Taking an instant to glance over to the door frame, the thief noticed his commander Ike was nowhere in sight. _"Shit! Probably playing hero somewhere else."_

"Take out your sword and prepare for battle. My knight's honor forbids me from attacking you while you are unarmed, but then again, who are you to understand the chivalrous spirit?" the axe knight boasted to the fallen teen.

The teenage thief stood up and took out his dagger. Both stood there measuring each other with their eyes, this would be an equal match. The knight attacked first with a standard sequence of axe swings. Sothe successfully dodged them all.

Pointing their weapons at each other, they began to circle as an excuse to cover more ground, but in reality they were observing each others' footwork. The knight attacked again with an expert axe fighting style, but seeing how Sothe accurately predicted and dodged every axe swing, the knight went berserk.

His swings were brutal but not fast, therefore Sothe managed to dodge roll to the right and propel a dagger to one of the joints of the knight's armor, but the opponent blocked it with his knight's shield and soon proceeded in a rampage attempt to tackle Sothe with it.

The olive eyed thief parried with his dagger and dashed backwards to distance himself from his heavily armored adversary.

"Fierce swing, but your footwork is kind of stiff" Sothe provoked.

"Coward! Let's see you dodge this" the knight announced, and as he slowly lifted his axe, Sothe noticed that his dagger had just broken.

Sothe's mind painfully registered the scene before him and its logical outcome.

"_Fuck,"_ the teen inwardly cursed. The knight was about to perform a _**critical hit**_ on the now defenseless thief.

"_Wait!"_ his inner self quickly interrupted, going through his skills to see if hopefully the thief had equipped himself with the _**Miracle Skill.**_

…nope. He only had a skill called _**Blossom**_.

"_Yep, I'm done for."_ Sighed the green-clad teen as he waited for his inevitable death. His mind briefly wondering if the wind mage Soren would only remember his death as a casualty.

"Time to die!" The axe wielder announced before a huge ball of fire made impact on his left side, sending the armored knight flying against the stone wall.

It took another two seconds for the thief to comprehend that his life was spared. But just as quickly as he pondered to the skies "who saved me?" he cursed said skies for answering instantly in the form of an annoying redhead.

"Hey, you!" The redhead squealed in pure fan boy fashion, kneeling right before the injured thief.

"I remember you!" the red head squealed again, bringing his face closer to the scowling thief. "You were with us during the attack the other day, right?"

The green haired teen sweat-dropped at the lack of personal space the mage in the red cloak applied, but unwilling to let fall the impassive and arrogant mask he had worked so hard to perfect, the nimble thief simply feigned ignorance. "I don't know what you're talking about." he responded.

"No, I remember you!" the redhead nodded twice, his red eyes shinning with excitement. "I saw you shanking enemy soldiers with that tiny little blade of yours. You were amazing! By the way, did you know we're almost the same age? Oh, sorry... I'm Tormod. I may not look like it, but I'm pretty much the most dangerous mage arou-".

"Look out!" Sothe yelled, but it was too late, the enemy knight was already lowering his axe to decapitate the fire mage.

"Little one!" a powerful and menacing looking beast shouted as he pounced on the unsuspecting knight. Devouring and clawing the strangled knight in ways so gruesome the rating of this fic would have to go up to explain.

It took another three seconds for Sothe to comprehend that his life has been saved yet again in under a minute. But before his brain could conjure up another thought, red eyes that put rubies to shame stared back into his olive eyes, and in a baritone voice said, "So as I was saying, I'm Tormod. And you are?"

"…Sothe."

"What a cool name!" Tormod squealed again, breaking more than one eardrum in range.

"Ugh…" grimaced the thief. He could already tell that this Tormod fellow was going to be an unwelcomed annoyance.

-x-x-x-x-(End of Chapter One)-x-x-x-x-

**-Miracle** is a skill that halves the damage received on lethal circumstances.

-**Blossom** halves the experience received in favors of better levels.

-And yeah, the beast that clawed the armored knight was Muarim.

**A/N: **That's it for today. Please comment, holler, predict, etc. Reviews are healthy for an author's soul. And a healthy author updates faster. Think 'bout that.


	2. Just a kid with an important cause

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Fire Emblem, not only would I have made Tormod a playable character in more chapters than the game allowed but I would be making a second sequel with him as the main character. Since that is not the case you know I don't own the franchise.

**A/N:** This chapter right here is just to remind you guys (and girls) what was Tormod's real standing in the war. It will also contain slight shoñen-ai.

"speech"

"_thoughts"_

_**Vocabulary**_ that will be explained at the end of each chapter

-x-x-x-x-x-(Because humanity only realizes something is wrong after they done it)-x-x-x-x-x-

**Chapter One "Just a kid trying to achieve something important"**

"_**Spirit Dust**_…" Sothe mouthed lazily, juggling the small item through his nimble fingers. He read in the manual that such an item boosted the magical potency of its consumer, in other words, it was useless in the hands of a non-magic user like him.

It was the treasure he found the other day, moments before meeting a certain annoyance. Said annoyance had red hair, was somewhat boisterous, clingy and kept going on about how they should be friends.

Sothe was having none of that. He didn't have a need for friends; he just needed the means to find the girl who left him behind, his surrogate sister.

Pausing to run his long fingers through his green hair, he spared a moment to think about the hyper fire mage and shuddered almost instantly. There was no way he would be friends with the redhead, after all, having someone as loud as Tormod so close to him would really put a blunter on his usefulness as a sneaky thief.

But back to his current situation

He had an item in his hands he had no use for. He didn't use magic after all. So what was he to do about this? A small voice in the back of his mind suggested "Give it to Commander Ike and he'll decide." But again, it was just a very small voice.

Not mention it was Commander Ike's fault that Sothe ended in a situation where Tormod had the chance to corner the lock-picker.

That's when Sothe decided that he was a thief first, a hired arm second. It was in his job description after all.

**Job Class: **Thief.

There! He can't be blamed for keeping items for himself; it was his job after all.

"I guess I'll sell it," the thief decided, leaving his tent to go to the business district of Begnion. Having pockets full of money would probably help in his quest for the girl who abandoned him, Micaiah.

And yeah, Sothe completely ignored the fact that his silver haired tent-mate, Zihark, was eyeing with amusement how the green-clad thief kept muttering the name "Tormod" as he tossed and turned on the ground while he was in deep thought.

At another tent nearby, a young fire mage was trying to sharpen (and failing miserably) the army's stock of swords.

"_Damn it all! Can't the Greil mercenaries hire someone else to do this?"_ he fumed.

The frustrated boy was so busy glaring daggers at the swords that he failed to notice when a tall, dark and bulky fellow entered the tent as well.

"That's it. I quit!" I can't take any more of this cr-"

"You should not leave a job unfinished!" the man said, sending a startled redhead flying in the direction of unforgiving swords

"Waagghhh!" was Tormod's reaction as he jumped forward, the sudden invasion of privacy catching him by surprise. Sadly for him, jumping forward might have not been the best course of action seeing as he landed on the swords he was working on. Thankfully those swords were still blunt, courtesy of the mage's lack of blacksmithing skills.

Still, ignoring the pain running through his nervous system, the mage turned to glare at the one who surprised him, "Where the hell did you come from?"

Before him laid a humongous dark man with greenish frizzy hair, bulky body clad in an uncomfortable looking yellow armor, and to top it all, a dumb look on his elderly face that screamed "mental institute".

Tormod was ready for the person to apologize or ignore said accusations. The mage, however, was not prepared to hear what the dark fellow replied.

"Devdan has been watching you..."

"Um...all right, then." Tormod staggered, absentmindedly taking two steps backwards, but before he could voice a complaint Devdan proceeded speaking.

"The commander asked us to work on these weapons. We should get started"

To which Tormod retorted, "I'm the world's greatest mage! Why do I have to do these stupid

chores? I should be training."

"Is kid still sour that Soren was the MVP of the last mission?"

"W-What?!" Tormod's eyes went wide like saucers, how the hell did Devdan know that?

As if reading his mind, Devdan answered, "Devdan has been watching you..."

Choosing to ignore _that_ comment, Tormod admitted he did feel a little sour. Yesterday after attempting to rescue the Heron Prince from an old fart, he found out first hand how Soren was way more talented at magic and smarter as a tactician than Tormod had ever hoped to be.

Soren was the Greil Mercenaries' tactician and Commander's Ike right hand. That wind caster was insensitive, crude, extremely pale and anorexic looking, stern, commanding, powerful and had a wide-ass cross on his forehead that screamed "don't even dare approach me".

In short, Soren simply made Tormod feel mediocre. And it wasn't a good feeling. The redhead had been working so hard to fight for the _**laguz**_'s rights. He has formed the laguz liberation force to save his laguz friends from slavery and offer them shelter back in Grann Desert.

So what did Soren have that Tormod didn't? It just wasn't fair.

The fact that yesterday's efforts to gain a _**beorc**_ friend also failed miserably just added to the wound. The fire caster didn't show it but he was fully aware that Sothe was trying to get rid of him. Tormod had never had beorc friends before, so maybe he was just going at it the wrong way. Or maybe he just needed to be even more straight-forward with the "we should be friends" concept.

Tormod was once again interrupted from his inner requiem when his small blistered covered hand was picked up and caressed under Devnad's big black ones.

"Huh…?" Again, Tormod stared wide-eyed at the border-line pedophile, a pink hue staining his cheeks at the ministrations given by the big man.

"Mmm..." Devdan mumbled, "Your blisters have to be treated properly. You will get an infection."

"Nah," Tormod quickly waved it off, "I just need a priest to mumble some magic words and wave a staff over it!"

"Grrrr! You are a fool! That makes Devdan upset!"

"Huh?" Tormod thought aloud, silently wondering how many "huh?" Devdan could invoke in merely two minutes. He also wondered why Devdan kept referring to himself in third-person.

"You can't always depend on others for help." Devdan lectured, "On the battlefield you have to know how to take care of yourself."

After that comment the look of forlorn made its way full circle into Tormod's face. Why did everybody have to point out that maybe Tormod didn't have qualifications required to be the leader of the laguz liberation force. Sure he was still a kid but that didn't make what he was trying to achieve any less important.

"Devdan needs vulnerary to teach you how to fix this hand. Devdan works on swords while kid goes to market place to buy vulnerary." He said, ushering Tormod outside without letting the mage have a word on it.

Sighing, the redhead chuckled at how much of a mother hen the border-pedophile man turned out to be before setting off to the business district. "This is why no one should judge a book by its cover".

-x-x-x-at the business district-x-x-x-

It was turning out to be a long day for Sothe. Apparently the shopkeepers thought they could fool the green-clad thief into selling his Sprit Dust at a price that was practically a steal just because said thief was young.

Sothe wasn't having any of it. Just because he was young didn't mean he was naïve. Yet he still wanted the money, so steeling himself to encounter yet another salesperson, he entered one of the shops he had previously overlooked, immediately wishing he hadn't.

There at the front counter was a redhead he was too familiarized with, lollygagging about how expensive those Elfire tomes were. He had opened the door softly when he entered, therefore the bells that were supposed to announce his entry didn't ring and hence the redhead took no notice of the green haired teen.

"_Okay, Sothe"_ he told myself, _"Quietly turn around a leave before the loud redhead notices you."_

With the poise and gracefulness that could only be found in skilled sword-masters or proficient assassins, the thief turned 180 degrees in reverse and headed back only to find the door didn't open as he pulled on the handle. That's when an unwelcomed passerby pushed the door open and snide a comment as the bells rang.

"The sign says 'push' not 'pull'"

Before Sothe could give this person a piece of his mind he heard the red head squeal out his name.

"Sothe!"

"_Damn!"_ the thief berated himself, "_all that training I did as a thief and I can't even sneak out unnoticed?"_ "Hello Tormod."

"Hello, Sothe!" said the mage, standing with his chest puffed out, arms crossed behind his head and showcasing that toothy grin of his. When Sothe didn't respond, Tormod continued, "I was thinking... We're both lethal mercenaries and we're both about the same age, so we should be friends!"

"_Damn he is persistent"_ "I don't think so," the thief responded nonchalantly, steering away from the mage.

"No?" the mage questioned quickly catching up to the thief's walking pace, "Well, you can say that, but I'm still going to be your friend. You'll see!"

"Hn, you'll have to catch me first." Sothe responded somewhat amused, sprinting toward the crowd in hopes of losing the annoying mage amidst the masses.

First the lock-picker hid behind some curtains at some furniture shop and was amazed when he saw that Tormod was also hiding there. _"How the…"_ Sothe thought before sprinting to another place to hide.

The library! It was a place so restrictive where everything had to be done silently. For someone as energetic as Tormod, this place would surely be hell. Hiding here would be so cruel, so evil…. so perfect.

"heheh," a redhead giggled seemingly entertained by whatever he was reading in that fire tome he was carrying.

Sothe cursed, loudly.

Needless to say he was immediately removed from the premises by two burly looking men with glasses.

"_Stupid scholars and librarians," _he muttered vehemently as he made his way to the one place he was sure the redhead would never search.

A public restroom

More specifically, a lady's restroom

Disturbingly, his silent musings and self-praise went down the sink when he heard some nearby flushing followed by a redhead steeping out of one of the stalls muttering something about "girl's rooms being cleaner than boy's room."

Giving the fire mage a leveled stare that could even almost freeze the depths of hell, Sothe questioned, "How the hell are you everywhere?" he all but shouted, after all, a thief does not make loud noises, and he was a thief.

"Huh?" Tormod blinked twice at the question, "I used my **Celerity** skill," he answered simply, still looking confused.

Scrap that. The demons in hell would probably be sneezing right about now at the intensity of Sothe's icy glare.

"Celery-what?" the green teen questioned behind gritted teeth

"My **Celerity** skill," the mage answered again, "it allows me to move two extra spaces than normal. That's how I can keep up with Muarim."

"…"

"…Sothe?"

"…"

"…hey Sothe, are you spacing out, wakie wakie!"

"_That actually was smart answer."_ Sothe thought as he eyed the shorter boy incredulously. He couldn't believe how smart the annoying mage just sounded, to which Sothe shouldn't have been that impressed in the first place since mages were supposed to be smart. Right?

Still, for whatever reason Sothe couldn't let Tormod know that, so to put the mage spirits down he replied, "Yeah, well… well Soren is better at magic."

"Huh?" The redhead stood stunned, his mouth opening and closing like a fish but the words wouldn't come out. So taking his next course of action he puffed his cheeks and stomped away, leaving the green-clad thief a moment of relaxing silence.

Regrettably for the thief the silence didn't last long because before he knew it Tormod was already looking at him with a mischievous grin.

"So…" the redhead started all too knowingly, "are we friends now?"

His red eyes were sparkling so vividly with hope that Sothe almost felt like caving in.

**Keyword:** almost.

"No, we are not friends."

"Hmph!," Tormod stomped around, puffing his cheeks in a child-like manner, only for it to be replaced by a boyish smile when his arm snaked its way around the thief's, "whatever you say, _friend_."

Olive eyes glared at the offending arm before his voice asked in a way that was more of a statement, "You're asking for a death-sentence, aren't you?"

"Yeah...? Well...maybe I am! But it's not like being my friend is going to hurt you!" the redhead retorted, scooting even closer to the thief.

Letting an exasperated sigh escape him, the taller of the two continued strolling through the various stores in hopes of finding one where he could sell his Spirit Dust. Surprisingly, Tormod had not said another word after snaking his arm around the thief's. Which by the way, said arms were still linked.

His eyes traveling towards the crowd he saw the offending glares the Begnion citizen directed at them. He also saw how oblivious and unaffected Tormod was by such glares. But why were the people glaring at them?

"_Wait a damn minute!" _his mind screamed as his eyes alternated between the crowd's evil glares and the contempt smile on the redhead's features. _"We look like a couple. But he's a boy and so am I. What the heck?_

The taller boy tried to release his arm from the shorter one's grasp but to no avail.

When Tormod giggled again, Sothe fought really hard to fight off the blush that was threatening to appear. _"What's with this warm feeling I'm getting all of the sudden?"_

His train of thoughts were instantly interrupted when the redhead suddenly let go of his arm and bolted to the direction of a loud skirmish, a humongous crowd going off about and cheering for something.

Sothe instantly felt like he lost his source of warmth but decided to question that feeling later. Right now he was curious about what was that had the redhead taking off like that.

"Kill the sub-human, kill the sub-human!" the crowd cheered as Begnion soldiers continuously impaled their spears to a chained human with tiger-like features. It was a laguz from Gallia.

"Get off!" the fire mage shouted, casting a large fire ball to shove away the conniving soldiers. This caused a loud stir among the spectators.

"Are you okay?" breathed out the mage, trying desperately to break open the chains that kept the laguz defenseless. Said laguz stared with detached eyes at the mage trying to free him.

"What's wrong with you people?!" Tormod yelled, "Laguz have feeling too, how could you do such a thing to them?"

"Sub-human lover!" the crowed cringed with pure disgust as they started to throw stones at the redhead.

Tormod covered his face with his red cloak and was about to say another thing when a boot kicked him in the gut, yanking him off the pulp-beaten laguz.

"Arrest the intruder!" the soldier yelled as they tried to restrain the struggling mage. Tormod, in despair, kept chanting up spells, hurling fireballs in all directions but it did little to wear off the soldiers.

"Let go of me!" Tormod frantically yelled, "Laguz have rights too. Laguz are not slaves! Laguz are n--" he never got to finish that last statement, because before he knew it, he was knocked unconscious.

Two days later Tormod awoke to see white. Four layers of white around him. No doubt about it, he was in the Greil infirmary.

"Little one," his surrogate father said worriedly. Muarim was the beast laguz that had taken care of Tormod ever since the young mage could remember. Said laguz had taken to care for the redhead as a father would but because he was a laguz living in a country were laguz were treated as lower than human scum, Maurim couldn't exactly offer Tormod a sheltered life. Yet even with this, Tormod showed no indications of ever wanting to leave the laguz side in hopes of living a normal beorc life.

"Stay here little one. I'll go notify Rhys to heal you up." The beast laguz announced, making his way out of the tent.

No later than Muarim left the tent, Sothe entered.

Red eyes connecting with olive ones, the injured boy asked "…what happened?"

"You passed out," the thief informed matter-o-factly, "I thought about just leaving you there, but that would have left a bad taste in my mouth. Told Commander Ike and he came to the rescue."

"Heh," the mage responded, hiding his face under the blankets to hide the tears that were fighting to come out, "and the laguz."

"uh…" Sothe thought about if he should tell Tormod or not.

Sothe, having come from Daein, was pretty used to seeing sub-humans get butchered. Heck, hunting sub-humans was practically a sport in Daein. But the way Tormod had reacted to the way those Begnion soldiers stabbed the sub-human, no, the laguz, made Sothe think about how he should word this.

But then, another thought cleared Sothe's uncertainty, _"Since when do I care about sugar-coating the truth?"_ "The laguz was already slaughtered by the time Commander Ike arrived".

"…and Soren?" the mage pressed, berating himself at how weak his voice sounded.

"_Soren tried to strangle you in your sleep" _"Uh…" lingered the nimble boy, searching for the best way to phrase his answer. Finding one he answered, "Let's just say that our standing with the aristocracy of Begnion only got worse from here."

"…oh," was Tormod's single word respond. _"Another laguz I failed to save. Some leader I am."_

"Here," Sothe said as Tormod felt an object land on his stomach. When the redhead finally peeked out of his blankets he saw Sothe at the exit, quietly saying "You did a brave thing out there."

"_Brave?"_ Tormod thought, as he recognized the item the thief left behind.

Spirit Dust

"Little one!" Maurim said, entering the tent, "Rhys and Ike will be here shortly. Soren too, he said he had some damage control to deal with you."

Tormod simply shrugged his shoulders at this, a small smile in his face as he started at the item in his hand. It didn't matter how much Soren would lecture him later about what not to do to get on the aristocrat's bad side. In Tormod's hands laid proof that maybe someone other than a laguz wanted to befriend him.

His red eyes glancing briefly towards his Elfire tome, he made a quiet vow.

"Next time I'll be the one doing the protecting".

-x-x-x-x-(End of Chapter Two)-x-x-x-x-

**-Spirit Dust** is an item that increases Magic by 2.

-**Celerity** is a skill that adds 2 spaces to a unit's movement.

**-Beorc **is how the human race is referred to in a civilized manner.

**-Laguz** is how the animal-morphing race is referred to in a civilized manner.

**A/N: **Here is another chapter for you, hope you enjoyed it. I'll keep with the shoñen-ai for two or three more chapters. Then I'll do the three years time-skip so that the really good stuff can begin. And yeah, by that time the rating will go up to **M**.

And yeah, I enjoy using Soren for crude humor.

Now what's that I see over there? (Follow the dots).

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The **review button**. Click it, you know you want to.


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